New Decade, New Voice

Damn. It’s been a few months since I have done a blog post. No better time then a New Decade right? I don’t make New Years resolutions, I think I stopped doing that in high school. I feel like it’s ok to make resolutions for yourself throughout the year as they come to you because things are always changing. I have some commitments I have made for myself in this New Decade. You can call them resolutions, you can call them goals, but for me it’s a commitment to stay motivated no matter what and it’s about something that is going to take some time, maybe through multiple New Years. What is this you might ask, tell us Mollie, we don’t like fucking guessing games!!??

Here we go…

As some of you may to have noticed in the last year or so. I have really been coming out and being honest about something that happened to me a few years ago, something that changed my life forever in many different ways and the reason I now have the most amazing 4 year old little girl. So I guess you could say, as horrible as the thing that happened to me was, it brought me something, I mean someone, who I couldn’t imagine living without.

I was RAPED. Yes, I was raped by someone who I dated on and off for a long time. A long time of abuse, physically, emotionally, and sexually. It took me a long time to be able to talk about it, because for a while I was afraid and I was manipulated into believing that this didn’t really happen to me. It did happen to me. I understand that coming out about this and fighting for my redemption in this will bring a lot of ridicule, judgment, doubt, hate. There are people that stand behind my rapist, people who I have tried to tell, people who are indeed doubting me because they are very close to him and it’s hard to believe that someone close to you could ever behave like this or do something so disgusting. Believe me, I know. I have gotten rid of people in my life who have done some horrible things, people who I thought were the best people in the world at one point in time, but one thing I will stand behind is the word of a women or someone who is telling me they were raped, beaten, scorned, made to feel like the worst person on the planet. If someone is making up stuff like this, well, shame on you. It’s sad to have people doubt you, it’s the reason that so many women stay silent. They are afraid to be ridiculed, told that they are liars, that it never happened, that so and so could never do something like that. I understand I lived with this for years before I felt brave enough to start talking about it. I was scared of the person that did it and still healing from the years of manipulation and abuse. Here is what happened. Warning, this may trigger some who have been through similar experiences. Read with caution and know that this is only a piece of the story as I start a journey on my new book that will really go in deep on this subject and the person that spent years trying to destroy me.

As hard as it may be for some to read this, please know that it’s even harder for me to write it. Every time I talk about it or write about it, I have to relive it. Imagine that. To go off on a tangent for a second, I just finished The Morning Show on Apple TV. SPOILER ALERT: One of the characters on the show who is sexually assaulted during the series, ends up over dosing on drugs during the last episode. You see her dissolve mentally into a state of fear and guilt over what happened to her, the silence she kept and how it destroyed her inside. This is what happens to A LOT of people who have been sexually assaulted and raped. They become so broken from the thought of ridicule, hate and doubt that they will receive by breaking their silence. How will it make them look? What will people say? On and on and on. There were so many times I felt these things, never to the point of wanting to end my life, but to the point of having so much self doubt, feeling so insecure and broken, that a part of you just wants to stay silent and forget. I somehow found the light and broke this wicked spell I was under. Alright, here goes for real…

This is how it happened, this is how I got my daughter. Anyone who has been in an abusive relationship knows it’s really hard to get out. If you are sitting there going, “no it’s not Mollie, you could have left the first time something shitty happened.” Well then you haven’t been in a horribly abusive relationship, especially one that started out great. Thing is, now that I look back as a strong women, there were definitely red flags, even in the very beginning. Back to how it happened. The abuse had gone on long enough, I was at breaking point of knowing that things had to end or they were going to get worse. They did get worse. Except this time I can’t recall too much. All I remember is walking into his home, having a drink, waking up the next day, same dress on, no underwear, thinking it was still the same evening. It wasn’t. He also told me when I came out into the living room that if I didn’t leave, he was going to call the police. He had done this before, called the police after asking me to come over, then doing a bi polar switch and wanting me out immediately. These were the type of mind games I dealt with for years. Bottom line is, I can’t tell you what happened for a good 24 hours. Need I say more? I don’t want to give too much of the past that lead up to this, because then what would be the point of the new book. What I will say is this. There were times in our relationship where he had friends who drugged me to make me look like an idiot, then come home and scream at me, push me around and tell me I was a crazy person. I was threatened emotionally, physically, professionally. You name it, I was scared like a puppy that felt like I had no way out and if I didn’t go along with this person bad bad things were going to happen to me. It’s very scary how these manipulative, rapist, sociopaths of the world can really get into your head. Why? Because they are smart, yes, they are, just because they are bad people does not mean they are not smart.

So here is the deal people. I am not going to be silent anymore. I am a survivor, I am taking a stand for women who have been through what I have been through. Whether it’s in the work place, with a partner, with someone they don’t know. I am stopping the silence. Those of you who want to stand behind a rapist, makes you just as vile as they are and I know some of you will read this who stand by my rapist. He works very closely with a very famous person from the Getty family. I have tried to warn him, friends, people that seem to think that my rapist is a good person. He isn’t. It’s human nature to be in denial about things like this when it’s someone you are close with. My only regret is not going forward with this immediately. I hope some of you will take a stand with me. I hope my story will not make you feel uncomfortable but somehow feel inspired to maybe tell a hard story you have been wanting to tell or just take a stand in general for women, for survivors, for the world. I understand this can happen to men too, so please do not think I am singling you out. I want redemption for ALL survivors of sexual assault/rape. Don’t think that because you were silent or silenced that you cannot come out now about what you have been through.

I won’t stop fighting for what is right. I am going to do whatever it takes to be heard and to make a difference for my daughter and the world. Don’t look at me differently, don’t treat me differently, I am still a human being, I still love life, I am still fun and this is something we all need to talk more about. More people need to share their stories in order to make a change and show our attackers, our abusers that we are not weak little puppies. I am not damaged goods, I found the light, I found my voice and if you are reading this and you are hanging by a string trying to survive your trauma… YOU CAN SURVIVE!

I know some of you might be asking yourself, “what will you tell your daughter?” She will know when she is old enough to understand, I will never hide a thing from her. She is my best friend, she already looks out for me and cares about me deeply and I believe this will only make our bond stronger. More on this another time.

Remember that what is broken can be fixed…

Lots of love,

MollieAF